


deep breaths

by peraltiagoisland



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, hope u all like this, i love soft dennis w his soft cat, i really hope yall like this, like the fic is largely just Soft so the e rating is really largely just for the end i guess??, minor ed scene but like. its cat related. its not like v bad but just tryna look out for yall!, was considering making it m but oh well just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 09:10:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19016827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peraltiagoisland/pseuds/peraltiagoisland
Summary: As it turns out, Agent Jack Bauer really is indestructible. Despite not seeing the cat for a whole decade, they cross paths again when Mac accidentally brings him home. They adopt him, and it doesn't need to be said, but their lives change in ways they'd never expect.





	deep breaths

Tap. Tap tap.

A weary howl twists and collides with their tightly shut window, strangled sounds that are lost on a slowly drifting Dennis. He is bundled on the couch, strategically wrapped in various spare blankets they’ve amassed over the years. The television is on, maybe. He isn’t watching. He faces the window in view of the blizzard, relentless and harsh but oddly calming. Almost a welcome sight. Of course, he’d be a stark contrast if the heat weren’t working so well today. The warm air covers him like an extra blanket, the best one, despite being one of many he’s got over his body.

The silence in their apartment, if you ignore the storm outside, is almost deafening. A rare thing for him to be, but Dennis feels at peace. He can’t help but observe that this is because he’s alone, and that it’s because Mac isn’t here. He went to the store, probably. To get some extra groceries and supplies so they don’t have to step out later. Maybe some extra blankets too, Dennis would get those if he were him. Who knows how long their heat’s gonna last? 

Dennis shifts on the couch, getting bored of watching snow fall, and picks up the remote. Starts flipping through channels. Turns out he hadn’t put anything on at all. Turns out nothing on tv is interesting. He doesn’t stay on one channel for more than five seconds before pressing down on that button again. 

Still, it beats having Mac around. Providing the odd thunk and clank, bumbling around their apartment like a clumsy tornado. Always breaking shit. Always saying something dumb to fill the gaps. Or doing some stupid punch-kick combo he thinks is martial arts in the middle of their living room. Yeah, it’s great that he– 

A sudden  _ bang!  _ swerves Dennis away from his thoughts, and tranquility distills to an instant panic, his heart racing at the loud and seemingly nearby sound. He could’ve sworn that was hail. 

Their door swings wide open with a more familiar bang, and Mac comes tumbling through the front door with a perceived avalanche of stuff thrown over his shoulder. He drops it to the ground the next moment, clutching his other shoulder. 

“Fuck,” he grimaces, sort of confirming where the earlier noise came from. “That hurt like shit.” 

Oh thank god. In an ideal world, Dennis would be abandoning his fortress of duvets to help Mac up. But in this world, at this moment, he’s too busy releasing a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding. A breath he’d been holding because Mac wasn’t home. He doesn’t question how Mac smashed his shoulder against the wall. 

“Got those beers?” he asks instead, like Mac isn’t wincing on the floor and rotating his arm at the socket. He grabs as many blankets that can stay draped over his shoulders at once, only to drop them on the floor when he realizes it’s just not practical to lug around his heavy cocoon. 

He doesn’t answer. 

“Why’d you get ice cream?” Dennis complains when he finds the tub of cookie dough fudge ripple first. 

“We were out,” he says matter-of-factly, only there’s the slightest whine in his voice that’s saying  _ please, please Dennis. I’m gay and I want ice cream.  _ And perhaps, just this once, Dennis will let it slide. 

“It’s raining  _ hail _ outside,” okay he lets it slide in the sense that he doesn’t throw it into the hallway, but he’s still going to make it known that he finds this ridiculous. Mac half rolls his eyes, still half-heartedly twisting his arm around, blatantly just trying to get attention at this point. “Your arm is fine,” he says, and Mac drops it. 

“The beer’s in here,” Mac says, quickly glossing over his flagrant attempt to get Dennis’ attention to, well, once again, get Dennis’ attention. “I swiped a couple from the bar.” 

There are six cartons of beer in the huge duffel bag, and perhaps Mac’s stint as the beefcake of this lifetime still has its perks. How in the hell did he carry this all home on his own? Dennis decides not to question it, once again. He grabs two beers to open them over a kitchen counter, handing one of them to Mac, who smiles, blush creeping to the top of his cheeks like it begs to be expressed. 

Dennis feels a rush of warmth overcome him, but then he hears an uncharacteristic meow and then an even more unexpected sight in the form of an actual cat crawling out the duffel bag. 

“Holy shi–“ Mac backs away, beer swishing dangerously in hand, from the gorgeous, stunning creature in expected shock. It was never like him to appreciate a creature of such beauty. 

“And who are you now?” he slightly coos in what’s been described to him as his ‘cat voice’ a time or two. But he doesn’t care. The oddly familiar cat meows again, shivering, and Dennis immediately covers him in one of their warm blankets. “Better now?” 

“Dennis, I’m cold too.” 

“Shut up.”

 

* * *

 

“Why didn’t you get cat food?” 

“How was I supposed to know we’d  _ need _ cat food?”

Fair point. Almost. “Well,” Dennis huffs, hands on hips, “maybe you should’ve thought about that before letting Agent Jack Bauer sneak back home with you.” 

“How the hell are you so sure that’s that junkyard cat you picked up ten years ago?” 

“Father’s instinct.” 

Mac snorts, in that haughty  _ yeah right, as if you’re not abandoning a literal child of yours to live with me right now _ way. Dennis pushes down the need he has to work through that somehow and gives Jack Bauer a kiss on his cute little head. 

“Shouldn’t he be dead by now?” Mac observes stupidly, because he’s a stupid stupid man. “He was already old as shit when you picked him up back then, no?” 

He pauses halfway through his deep breath and chooses not to say something dismissive. “He’s indestructible, Mac.”

“Oh. Okay.” Mac smiles, running his fingers through his hair. “Kinda like Poppins was.” 

“He’ll outlive you if you keep talking.” Dennis walks over, opens up the freezer. “Whatever, forget the cat food, dude. We’ll give him some of our fish.” 

“We don’t have fish.” 

Dennis turns around sharp and angry, like Mac just threw a frisbee that collided with the back of his head. He slams the freezer shut. “What the hell are you talking about? We—we don’t have fish?” 

“Ran out.”

“Ran out? Mac, we’re  _ seasoned _ fish eaters. We don’t just run out of the stuff.” 

“Just give him milk or something.” 

“You cruel bastard,” he says, but pours some of the stuff for Agent Jack anyway. 

 

* * *

 

The first night back home (home being Dennis) for Special Agent Bauer goes over smoothly. More than just smooth, actually. Dennis sleeps like a baby, rid of all his vices and scars that would usually keep him on the edge of a light and short sleep. Perhaps it is the calming sounds that Agent Bauer makes, purring softly throughout the night. And far into the morning. Takes up quite a few hours of the afternoon too, actually. Finally, at the break of twelve hours after dawn, Dennis rolls out of bed and into the living room with precious cargo in hand. 

“I thought you were dead, dude.” 

“He just wanted me to match his sleep schedule,” Dennis explains, his voice all that more sweet because of the company he has (not Mac). “Oh,” he goes, when he enters the kitchen, seeing the neatly arranged cans of cat food, recognizing them as one of the more top notch brands he’s noted when perusing items at the pet store. “You…” 

“Yeah, I did. Went out early and got those for him this morning. If I had known you two assholes weren’t getting up till now, I would’ve slept in too.” 

He yawns.

Dennis swallows, keeps facing the counter where he won’t have to look at Mac’s eyes, those eyes that would recognize his gratitude. He puts down Agent Jack Bauer and cracks open the top can, unwittingly careful not to mess up the pyramid structure of the cat food tins Mac clearly worked hard on. For someone so sick of Mac trying to please him with his every move, Dennis treats this latest act of consideration like a fragile vase—one that’s already broken—which he needs to sweep up without getting cut. 

The fuzzy ball of dark grey digs heartily into his long deserved meal. Dennis looks on for a few needed moments of distraction, hands gripping onto the edge of that counter like he’ll fall through an absent floor if he lets go. He looks up, once, at Mac, then left, right, bottom lip between his teeth. Mac is looking straight at him with those piercing brown eyes. Whether they are always this fear-gripping is up for debate, but on this lazy late afternoon, he grows shy.

“Hey, uh. Why…”

He laughs, to his chagrin. “After that bitchy ass fit you threw last night? What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

“Bitchy ass fit?”

They’re both laughing, suddenly. Less out of humor, more out of… familiarity. Tenderness. Warmth in the midst of the winter. Something to do. 

“Can’t believe you used your own money to buy something for me. I mean, uh, for him.” He straightens his posture, coughs through the mistakes like his sinuses are erasers, and then regains his sense of self. “Agent, Agent Jack Bauer.” 

“Oh yeah, of course dude, I’d do anything for him,” he says, speaking in metaphors, but in a fumbly way that’s familiar and characteristic of him. “But uh, you, you’re not him, so. What’re you gonna do for me… in return?” 

_ His words thrust Dennis years back, to a long unthought of time from high school. Maureen Ponderosa had made him a special yearbook to replace the official one everyone had that he hated. He hadn’t been voted for in any category. No ‘Class Clown’, no ‘Most Likely To Succeed’, no ‘Most Unforgettable’, nothing. Like he didn’t even exist. He blamed the whole thing on anything he could. He hung out with Mac and Charlie too much, any votes for him were made invalid because he was twins with a literal monster of metal, they probably eliminated him because he was voted first for every category so they had to pick the people with the second most votes as the winners instead, since Dennis was so popular and worshipped that he wouldn’t even need a stupid feature in a yearbook to give him that boost. He still hated the injustice, though. There was no need to make him take a step back just because the other kids couldn’t afford a leg to stand on. He ranted about it to anyone who would listen, raved about how the yearbook would look so much better with his face in it, over and over, passing blunts back and forth with Mac and Charlie, he sounded off on Dee that one time at home before she stupidly chimed in with how she felt she deserved to be voted for something cool too, and then he apparently, told Maureen. Because she just presented to him a personalized yearbook in which they won Best Couple, and Dennis won every other category. A valiant effort, but not the most appreciated one because she sprinkled one too many pictures of herself in, plus the whole thing was basically scrap paper. Sure, it was leather-bound and everything, but there were, uh, too many cat stickers too. Loads of things weird about the yearbook that didn’t take.  _

_ “Why did you make this?” he had asked her.  _

_ “I made it because you were so upset, sweetie,” she said gratefully, wrapping her hands around his waist. “Like it?” _

_ “Sure.”  _

_ “I made your wish come true, right?” he didn’t answer. “You know... wishes are paid for in kisses.”  _

_ He puckered up and nearly choked on the putrid stench of her dead tooth. The next day, they were over. He told her it was because things would end up falling apart in college anyway.  _

_ Like a sucker punch, he’s now reminded of something else connected to this memory. College. Freshman Year. Drunk kisses surrounded by warm sandwiches. He’d been missing those hoagies from the Wawa back home, and the one on campus served up plain garbage on stale bread. He whined to the gang over the phone about this from time to time, and when told to just drive back home, he couldn’t.  _

_ “And miss out on being the life of the constant party we have goin’ down here?”  _

_ “Whatever, dude,” he heard Charlie drag the phone away from his ear, “I mean, s’like we never see the guy anymore.”  _

_ Drunk off his ass a few days later, sat in his bed alone drinking beer that he didn’t get to share with anyone, Mac showed up, hands full, bearing cheese steak sandwiches and appearing like a light at the end of a dark, damp, tunnel.  _

_ “You said you wanted these but couldn’t come home to get them,” he remembers him explaining, doesn’t remember what prompted the explanation, “it’s like, nothing man, just eat up. You look skinny as shit.”  _

_ When he kisses Mac all those years ago, he is tipsy, grateful, and prefaces it with “wishes get kisses”, slurring the words, not even getting the saying all the way right. Mac’s mouth is soft against his own, supple, he could taste the answers to all his problems on that tongue. He cups the cheeks of his face, cold from braving the winter chills to come all the way here, to Dennis. Oh, the sacrifice. Dennis wants to warm him up with his beer-stained lips and dizzying breath. Mac takes a few moments too long to push him away and freak out about being struck down by the Lord Almighty. Dennis takes too long to stop sobbing into the sheets when he leaves. _

_ Ah, those days. _

 

* * *

 

“Aw, man, you could’ve just came over and took some of ours, dude.” 

Dennis is not a fan of the way Charlie haphazardly waves his hands around, barely gripping onto his beer bottle. 

“Uh, why’re you dick wagons carrying that disease factory around again?” Dee barges in, the sounds of a clearly suffering toilet flush gradually fading behind her. She narrows her eyes. “What’s the scheme here?” 

“Special Agent Jack Bauer isn’t some scheme, you bitch,” Mac scolds Dee who rolls her eyes back into her soulless head. “He’s our cat now, right, Dennis?"

“Charlie, any and all cat food you have is gross and cheap,” Dennis says, ignoring Mac and Dee. Mac’s head tilts and goes downcast. He bites his lip slightly. “Agent Jack Bauer here,” he looks lovingly at his wide eyes, “he only eats the best stuff. Not any of Frank and Charlie’s two-dollar-a-can shit, right, baby?”

“Psh, we don’t buy cat food that’s two bucks a pop, man. No way, uh-uh, Frank gets us like, the good stuff now.”

“The cheap shit Charlie picked up was makin’ us sick.” 

“Isn’t that the point?”

“We had to go to the  _ hospital,  _ man.”

“Oh. Yikes. Wait, doesn’t Charlie not have health insurance? How were you affording this?”

Charlie scowls at Frank, clearly remembering those times one or more of them was denied healthcare because he wouldn’t pay for it. “Yeah Frank, how  _ was _ I affording that?”

“What are ya lookin’ at me like that for? This was, was uh, back when we were married.” 

“You two were married?”

“God, I don’t remember that at all.”

Frank rolls his eyes. It’s clear even he is unsure of whether what he says is true. “Whatever.” He points at Dennis. “You’re not touching our cat food.” 

“He doesn’t even, like, want any of it, dude,” Charlie says, oddly offended at that.

 

* * *

 

“Dude, you won’t believe this steal I got at the supermarket just–”

“None for me, thanks.” Dennis is lying, face up, on the couch. Agent Jack Bauer is quietly perched somewhere close. 

“But Dennis,” there’s worry in his voice that he doesn’t appreciate, “it’s snapper. You–we, we love that stuff, remember?”

“I  _ said, _ ” his words are sharper now, he sighs, eyes shut. “I don’t want any, Mac.”

“Okay.” There’s a defeated sound in his voice. No one would blame him, though. It’s been three days. He makes some light smacking sounds with his lips and Dennis feels their cat leap off the couch to follow him. Oh, that’s right. It’s dinner time already. Dennis follows along to their small dining table in the kitchen, sits down to watch Mac rip open a can and scoop the whole thing into the little pet bowl they picked out together at the store. And by ‘they’, he means himself, Agent Jack Bauer, and… Mac. They walked around with the curious cat, eventually picking the one he showed the most interest in. His pet bowl was picked perfectly of course, classic and simple, nothing too crazy, faint little paw prints and the silhouette of a cat’s face over a smooth metallic color. It’s beautiful, matches the coat of his fur, and it does a good job of holding cat food, which, well, never hurts. Dennis offers a tiny snort to Jack Bauer before gently stroking his head. He loves watching that cat eat. He always chows down without a care in the world, only looking to eat up every morsel in his bowl. Dennis thinks he’s lucky to be this way. It’s not exactly a luxury everyone can afford. Perhaps it isn’t even a luxury all cats have. 

“Okay, go ahead and eat up, kid,” Mac pushes the bowl in front of Bauer, who looks down at the food, then back up at Dennis again. He doesn’t touch the stuff. Doesn’t so much as sniff it. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mac pushes the bowl closer to Bauer, who steps away. Dennis stays silent. “You okay, buddy?” 

This has… never happened before. Anxiety builds up in his stomach like a tsunami of acid. It doesn’t exactly help that he’s been on the verge of passing out for half the day. 

“Mac, check… check the expiry date of that thing.” 

Mac immediately picks up the can he just opened. Yeah, cats are sensitive to this kind of stuff. Mac probably got that food from some shitty discount store to save money but suck up to Dennis all the same, pretend he actually cares, the bastard. Dennis knew he should’ve just bought the food himself.

“This stuff doesn’t expire for two years, bro.”

“Two years? Christ, canned food really does last that long, huh.” He’s antsy now, fidgeting in place, his palms getting sweaty, he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know how to make this better. He looks at Jack Bauer earnestly, begs him to eat with his eyes, tells him not to be stupid and eat up, because he needs the energy. Agent Jack Bauer looks away. 

“Maybe he’s sick of this stuff,” Mac suggests, and Dennis silently exhales. “I mean, we have been feeding him this shit everyday. Maybe he just wants us to change it up a little.” 

“Right, yeah… that could be what this is.” He looks into Bauer’s blank eyes, unable to read their cat. He’s not sure he even knows the guy anymore.  _ Why are you doing this? _ He tries to ask, but the cat looks away. 

“I’m gonna give him some milk, okay? Dennis?” 

He looks up and nods. “Yeah, give him the milk.” 

Mac looks around, grabbing their spare pet bowl that they also bought at the pet store. Perhaps they did get a tiny bit carried away that day, but hey, they turned out to be right, however upsettingly it is to admit, given this current situation. But at least they get to use the bowl. Mac pours milk into the sleek black pet bowl and puts it in front of Agent Jack Bauer again. He takes one look at the milk and steps back, looking up and both Mac and Dennis this time. 

Dennis slumps into his chair, distressed. “What’s going on with you?” 

“Dennis, dude, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll just, uh, cook some of our fish for him. Maybe he smelt the fish when I came home and he got tempted.”

He’s picking at his nails, peeling his lip with his teeth, destroying anything within reach. “Okay. Okay, yeah, you’re right.” He swallows, shaking. “This better work.”

It doesn’t. Mac’s next idea is to go over to Frank and Charlie’s apartment to get a different brand of cat food.

“I thought we agreed that whatever Frank and Charlie think is premium cat food isn’t actually that premium and that whatever they’re eating is still probably trash.” 

“Well, I dunno. Maybe that’s what he wants. Crappy food. Couldn’t hurt to try, right?”

When Mac leaves, Dennis watches Agent Jack Bauer, unsure whether it would help or hurt to give him a hug, pet his head, or straight up cuddle him on the kitchen floor. He taps the plate of snapper Mac fried up for Bauer, he takes a whiff, and he goes faint at how good he knows that will taste. Agent Jack Bauer lifts his paw and he… he pushes the plate towards Dennis.

“What are you doing? That’s yours.” He lets out a breathy, short chuckle. “Wow, you really don’t like snapper, huh.” He sits on the floor now, arms around his knees. “God, I thought I knew you, man. Wish you could talk.” 

Mac comes back sometime later, but (and it should be noted that this is probably not Jack’s fault, given how stupid the idea was) Agent Jack Bauer still refuses to eat the cheap cat food. Mac groans, his hands pressed on the kitchen counter, several pet bowls filled with food in front of Agent Jack Bauer now. Mac’s externalizing the same emotions Dennis feels, but he still disproves of this show of emotion from Mac. What if it scared Jack right as he was thinking of eating?

“I give up,” Mac declares, like it’s something new and unexpected of him. “I’m making dinner.” 

Dennis sits back down on his chair, eyes switching from Mac to Jack to Mac to Jack as he cooks. Mac serves up two plates of snapper, puts one in front of Dennis, silently, like it makes this act more inconspicuous, before proceeding to eat. Dennis sits up straighter in his chair, like it’s his excuse to not do anything else during that action, and he clears his throat. Mac just keeps on eating, occasionally looking at him and Agent Jack Bauer. Dennis sighs. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt just to try–

Oh, and there it is. Right as Dennis takes a bite of snapper, he sees Bauer do the same. Could that be a coincidence? The snapper slides down his throat just as good as it feels to see Bauer take that bite. Swallowing the fish also feels horrible, but then he takes another bite, experimentally, just as Jack stops, and then Jack starts eating again. With every bite Dennis takes, Agent Jack Bauer eats, and eating gets easier for him too. Soon, they devolve into a fluid process where they both continuously eat their dinners without much of a pause. 

“Oh, wow,” Mac carefully remarks, watching this unfold, having finished his meal. The way he smiles watching Dennis eat is nauseating, and Dennis nearly stops eating out of spite, but doesn’t half because he doesn’t want to risk Agent Jack Bauer not eating, and half because this snapper… is really that fucking good. “Dude, I think he’s eating because of you.”

Dennis swallows and decides to nod. “Yeah.” 

“I think… when you uh, when you weren’t eating,” Mac runs fingers through his hair, “he decided to like, copy you or something. That’s why he wasn’t eating before I think.” He clears his throat. “I read that somewhere.” 

“You read that somewhere?” That doesn’t sound right, but Dennis doesn’t know enough about Mac’s browsing history to dispute it. 

“Yeah.” Mac hides a shy smile. “You know, when you were, when we were both like, freaked as shit about Jack not eating…” 

“Yeah?” 

“You were super like, scared, right?” 

Where is he going with this? “Sure, what about it, dude?” 

Mac takes a deep breath. Whatever courage he’s trying to muster, he better do it quick. Dennis is losing interest in this. “Look, just, however scared you felt when he didn’t eat, I feel it ten… feel it ten times–” he scoffs and stands up, grabbing both their plates to dump them in the sink–”never mind, forget I said anything dude, ‘s dumb shit you don’t–” 

“Mac, what is it?” he stands up, asks this, but he already knows what Mac wants to say, and he almost regrets trying to get Mac to spit it out. 

He sighs again. 

“You don’t want me to say it either, man.” 

 

* * *

 

He refuses to stop. 

“Hey buddy, you alright there?” 

Dennis digs the back of his palm into the side of his head, finally pulling the covers off and walking up to a certain Agent Jack Bauer. He won’t stop meowing. Also, he’s sat right next to the door. A bit mean, hurtful, if you ask Dennis. 

But perhaps it isn’t personal. 

“You need something from outside?” 

He mewls and looks up with the roundest eyes, at Dennis, who can’t resist it when those pupils get so full and wide. He opens the door, and Bauer scampers outside. 

“What is it?” Dennis rubs his eyes, sleepy. Maybe a few minutes entertaining his beloved won’t hurt. It’s not like he’d be able to rest anyway when Agent Jack is being this way. “Need a snack?” he goes to the pantry and gets one of Agent Jack Bauer’s favorite cat treats. Agent Jack stops for a moment, as if a good treat might not have been his original plan, but now he’s tempted. He stands up on his hind legs and bites the treat out of Dennis’ fingers, licking his lips once after eating. 

“You good now?” 

He purrs softly, and Dennis rubs his head. Only, he is betrayed when he turns back to walk to their room, and Agent Jack Bauer ventures forth in the opposite direction... all the way to Mac’s room. 

He stands outside the closed door, sat obediently, and to his chagrin, begins to whine very loudly. 

“God, you have got to be kidding me.” 

Mac’s door opens a second later, and he’s looking rather tired too, rubbing his eyes, his hair a soft fluffy mess, unlike the stiff rigid do Dennis has to deal with everyday, the stench of that hair gel... now, Mac is just in his natural state, he’s not overcompensating or being extra annoying, so... 

This is Mac at his most dangerous (but don’t tell anyone he thinks that). 

“What’s up?” 

He yawns now, and Agent Jack Bauer rushes to him, curling up around his leg. Dennis scowls at the display. To him, this is an act of complete and total betrayal. It really is pointless to be good to anyone, any cat. No one has loyalty these days, and all everyone wants to do is hook up with the nearest beefcake, apparently! Dennis wants to seethe about this, but knows that the best plan of action is indifference. 

“Guess he wants to sleep with you tonight,” Dennis declares, tone of voice clearly not indifferent in the slightest. 

“Oh,” Mac reaches down to give Agent Jack Bauer tiny head pats that Dennis resents him for. Maybe it’s his hands. Maybe it’s his amazing, irresistible hands that are causing this divide between his and Agent Jack Bauer’s deep, previously impenetrable love. Fine. Whatever. Agent Jack Bauer is just a weak cat enslaved by his desires. “You sure about that?” 

Agent Jack Bauer walks over to Dennis and licks him in the shin, as if he’s trying to say that he likes Dennis too. It feels fake, forced, and isn’t working. Dennis moves his leg away from the cat and gives him a hard glare. “Yeah. Good night, Mac.” 

Mac breaks into a soft smile. Maybe he’s appreciating this small moment since Dennis hardly ever bids him a good night these days. Whatever. Dennis tries his best to look away from that smile. 

“Good night, Dennis.” 

Minutes later, as he tosses and turns in bed, he hears a familiar cry at his door, accompanied by a few knocks doled out by Mac. 

“He won’t stop scratching on my door,” Mac spits out tiredly the second Dennis opens his. “Keeps making noise and trying to get me to let him out and shit."

“Funny,” Dennis tightens his gaze when he directs it at Agent Jack Bauer, “he did the same to me earlier.” 

“Well, you were wrong, dude,” Mac exhales loudly, “maybe he just wanted to see me for a second. But he knows he’s supposed to like, sleep in your room, I guess.” 

“Fine,” Dennis sighs, pulling his door wide open so that the returning king can walk in, and he does. “This better be the last time,” he warns Agent Jack Bauer. 

But it isn’t. 

It happens again. And again. And again. It happens an embarrassing amount of times, more than either of them would be willing to admit. Or able to count. They probably should’ve realized it sooner, but the time they actually realize is when Mac shows up at Dennis’ room again for the, the uh,  _ nth _ time. Let’s just go with that. 

“Dude, I think we should just sleep in the same room,” Mac suggests, not at all amicable by this point. Dennis feels like he could kiss Mac and the man still wouldn’t calm down. “This is crazy, he wants to sleep with both of us. He’s not gonna stick with only one of us, and this is gonna drag till the damn sun rises unless we do something.”

Dennis isn’t sure he’s a big fan of the idea of sharing his room with Mac, but even he has to admit this is all getting a bit too ridiculous. Besides, they have work tomorrow. Not that that matters in the slightest, but it’s still a reason to try out this plan.

“You’re sleeping on the couch,” he declares, climbing back into bed as Mac closes the door. 

“The couch is outside, remember?” 

Dennis groans, halfway up his bed. Mac stares at him in a way that makes him look away fast, those piercing eyes sparkle too bright for this time of night. “Get in bed. But stay on your side.” 

Mac sighs in a way that’s more fatigued than what lacking ten days of sleep would bring. Dennis knows why but he keeps mum. He decides not to throw a pillow between them though. 

With Mac in bed, sleep is even harder to come by. He feels heat radiate off Mac stronger than their own radiator. He shuts his eyes and sees clearer than ever the all too few inches of space between them. One little poke, one little nudge... and skin would touch. 

“Hey, Dennis?” 

Dennis slowly opens his eyes. “Yeah?” 

“What time is work tomorrow?” 

Dennis stretches, knowing that Mac is looking at him, and despite the temptations, he refuses to look back. “No clue.” 

“Oh. Hm. So we, just like, walk in whenever?” 

“What’s new, right?” 

Mac lets out a soft chuckle, shifting in bed as he laughs, and Dennis can’t help but crack a good guffaw and smile too. 

They begin to hear some noise. Sitting up, Dennis realizes they’ve left the door open just a crack, enough to let Agent Jack Bauer through, and now he’s messing around with the... radiator? 

Dennis rushes out, anxious for some reason, and Mac comes blindly following behind him. But they’re too late. Neither of them know how it happens, but the heat’s no longer working. Fuck. 

“Oh shit.” 

“Jackie, hey,” Mac picks up their dumb cat who Dennis raised to be better than this. “Bauer baby, what happened? What’d you do, man?”

“He broke the damn heat, that’s what happened,” Dennis seethes, upset and disappointed. What on earth would drive his perfect angel of a cat this insane? Did he eat something funny? Wake up the wrong side of the bed this morning? 

“Oh, okay,” Mac puts down the traitor cat. Losing their heat was the one thing Dennis wanted to avoid, and now... yeah. “What now, man?” 

“I don’t fucking know,” Dennis walks back to their, I mean, his, room, and sits on the edge of the bed. “It’s gonna get real cold in here... real goddamn soon."

Mac scratches the back of his head. “Dennis, you know I could just go back to my room if you–“ 

“No, you idiot. We gotta like, conserve body heat or whatever now,” he huffs, as if to say  _ you really can’t do anything right, huh,  _ before going on to say “get all the blankets you can find, then meet me back on my bed.” 

They find the best configuration they can to lay out all the blankets on Dennis’ bed, and they both crawl under the covers. Mac moves far enough away to match the previous distance between them, before the cut off heat, and the fact that he’s doing this after they’ve lost all their heat is why this particular move pisses Dennis off. 

“What are you doing? Come closer.” 

“Oh,” Mac says, reacting quickly, but still clearly not touching Dennis out of fear. “This... okay? Dude?” 

Dennis sighs. “Come here.” He pulls Mac into a back hug, a warm snuggly cuddle, and he feels Mac exhales against the arm he’s got wrapped around his shoulder. “See Mac? Isn’t this better?” 

Mac hums, almost moaning. “Mm, yeah, that’s good.” This makes Dennis retract immediately, and Mac reacts accordingly. “Goddamn it,” he sighs first, “Dennis, dude, you know I didn’t mean it that way.” 

“Of course you did,” Dennis scowls, his arms crossed, his body facing away from Mac as close to his side of the bed as he can be without falling off. 

“Look man, I’ve tried–“ his voices thins out in fear, in desperation–“I’ve tried to stop being so goddamn in love with you, but it’s not that easy, okay? You have to give me–“ 

“Wait.” Dennis freezes, like water when it’s... zero degrees Celsius. He swallows, like his spit is water when it is not zero degrees Celsius. 

(Dennis is the king of self-described feelings, kindly do not question his figures of speech.) 

“What?” Mac asks, more agitated than anything. 

Dennis can’t really breathe all that well. “What did you... what did you say?” 

Mac clams up. “Nothing.” 

“Goddamn it, Mac,” Dennis can’t believe this man, “I’m this close to kissing you, tell me what you said!” 

“I said I was... was trying to... fall out of love with you,” he swallows, clearly still nervous, despite managing to say this much. “And that’s, that’s hard, because... it’s you. It’s you, man. It’s… it’s always gonna  _ be _ you.” 

Dennis bites his lip instead of kissing Mac. “You’re... so you’re really...” he takes a deep breath. “You’ve been in love with me this whole time? All this time?” he’s this close to demanding a timeline, a start date, some milestones in Mac’s journey of... being in love with him. His mind is racing, his heart is racing, his body is static. He has no idea what to make of all this. 

Mac snorts. “Come on, dude. Stop pulling my fucking leg.” He looks very all over the place. “There’s just, no. No—dude. No way. No way you didn’t–“ 

“I didn’t know.” 

“You didn’t know?” 

They lie in silence there, for a while. 

“But,” Mac turns to look at Dennis again. “How could you not have known, dude? I mean, everyone makes fun of me for it. The Gang’s sick as shit of me being... you know. And–“ he scoffs–“how did you not know? God fucking damn it, Dennis, isn’t this whole  _ me being in love with you _ thing what’s been pissing you off this whole time?” 

“No.” 

Mac sighs deeply, very deeply. He’s clearly thinking over everything that’s gone down between them for the past few months, years, and is questioning everything he knows about how Dennis feels towards him. 

“You said you’d never fuck me. Or even kiss me.” 

“That’s when I thought that’s all you wanted from me.” 

“Ohhhhhhh,” Mac goes, nodding. “Wait. I don’t get it.” 

Dennis, who was previously staring up at the ceiling, now turns on his side, looking away from Mac, obviously. “I’m in love with you too, asshole.” 

He takes a moment to absorb and feel with full force, the meaning of this. Then Mac grabs Dennis by the shoulder, turns him back, holds him in the arms, and presses the softest kiss against his lips. The most longed for kiss, the most resented kiss, the most tender kiss. He gives this and more, all for and only for Dennis. 

“Man, you turn me down god knows how many times and I still gotta kiss you first,” he teases when they pull apart, and Dennis blushes. 

“Shut up, you idiot.” 

“Make me, asshole.” 

Dennis passes on the expected kiss Mac wants to take, instead sliding a palm down his crotch, slowly and tantalizingly, making Mac groan in the most beautiful way.

“Fuck,” his chin rises, head digging back into the pillow, “god, that’s good.” 

“You like that, baby?” 

Mac nods as Dennis continues to tease and graze his crotch, gently with his fingers, living for every shiver and gasp. He hardens at an almost embarrassing speed (for Mac, not for Dennis, who is clearly a sex god), and soon begins to whine incoherently as he drags down his waistband, stroking his cock, up and down with precision. 

Mac’s hand is palm down on the sheets, dragging it down the same way curses and profanities are dragged out his mouth. Dennis spits on his hand, licking it down the middle, slowly, makes Mac watch, before wrapping it around his shaft and pumping it, almost desperately. He slowly chuckles at the way Mac continues to writhe, squirm, cry, plead, and then he offers his fingers up to his mouth. Before the look in his eyes makes it a demand. 

“Suck,” he commands, and Mac pushes himself up with his elbows, and puts his tongue so tantalizingly on Dennis’ fingers, takes his fingers into his mouth and slurps hard, biting playfully too, sending shivers down his body, making his arousal grow with need, he throbs, he bites his lips, he confiscates his fingers from that pretty mouths, and he proceeds. 

“Fuck, dude,” Mac babbles on unintelligibly, his chest heaving, “didn’t know,” his hands are sliding up Dennis’ sleep shirt now, “didn’t know you’d be this fucking good.” 

Dennis lets himself pull closer. His lips are on the chiseled jawline of the most forbidden love of his life, the same jaw he’d lace his hands on, cheek in palm, saying sweet nothings to his face, because he could, because neither of them let themselves know the truth before. 

“I was always this good,” he says gently, not wanting his skills to be called into question, “but I’m gonna be better,” he presses hot kisses against his neck, “even better for you, baby."

Mac groans at the sound of his voice, hands moving faster like a man possessed, a certain wild energy taking over, he goes for his sweatpants, determined to get Dennis to a similar point of undress, the heat between them stronger than what used to protect them from the chills of winter. 

Dennis cries softly at his touch, like feeling Mac’s fingers quickly gravitate towards his erection is in itself a form of release. He releases the breath he’s been holding for so long, for so many reasons, and it leaves him not empty, but warm and happy, and for the moment, complete. He gets desperate, thrusting into Mac’s balled up fist, matching the same frenzied pace he takes to jerking Mac off. Mac bites his lip through a strangled holler, going “fuck fuck, fuck,” and then “I love you”. 

That doesn’t get any less scary the more Mac says it, but that doesn’t mean Dennis wants to hear it any less. 

He lets Mac come first, shushing his little cries with pecks on the lips, then strange areas on the face others might not think to kiss, but Dennis treasures each kiss like a star in the sky. Especially, like those stars Mac and Dennis used to stare at, for countless nights in their youth (and some isolated moments in their less youthful days), passing a blunt back and forth, shoulder pressed against shoulder, fingers ever so often brushing past… the love they can now admit they had. 

Mac pushes up and grabs his face with a ferocity, a hunger, a love. He kisses him feverishly, before pushing Dennis down, pining him with a smile, and for once Dennis doesn’t look away, but meets him head on with a smile of him own. 

“Your turn,” Mac slurs, a mixture of fatigue and satisfaction, but also exhilaration. He gets to work immediately, and sucks down his entire length like it’s easy, something he does all the time, and oh—that has Dennis feeling all sorts of jealous actually—but his mind is wiped clean the second Mac swirls his tongue around the head of his cock, before taking him swiftly again, making Dennis gasp and flail until he’s begging Mac to finish him off, because every second they wait is another added on to the years they’ve spent dancing round each other but never quite getting it, never seeing sense. 

Also, if he’s being honest, he’s getting rather sleepy and just wants to come already. 

Mac doesn’t put up much of a fight, and soon they’re just catching their breath, side by side, reveling in what they’ve finally lost enough restraint to do. Dennis feels kisses press against his neck, chaste and loving, knows they’re good night kisses despite the fact that… this is the first time he’s genuinely received any. Because this is the first time he’s gone to bed with someone he wants to wake up next to. He kisses Mac back, and then they both concede to the need for rest that looms over their heads. 

Dennis covers himself up, the warm blankets, the warm body resting by his side, the strangely warming air. He cracks an eye open and looks at the cat behind this whole operation. The conniving cat cracks an eye open too. 

It seems crazy, but Dennis swears they exchange smiles. 

“Agent Jack Bauer,” he whispers, “you’ve done it again.” 

**Author's Note:**

> hoped u liked this! pls drop me some kudos n comments loves


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